Lijo Jose Pellissery: I will screen my cinema anywhere I feel is right

A few days ago, Lijo Jose Pellissery announced that he is going to make a new film and nobody is going to stop him. The film was a mysterious project simply titled A. Now, the filmmaker has elaborated on his filmmaking vision and challenged some of the archaic practices of the Malayalam industry in a new Facebook post.

Calling himself an "independent filmmaker," Lijo wrote that cinema is not some "money-making machinery" for him but a medium to express his vision. "I will use all the money I raise from cinema to fuel better cinema and nothing else. I will screen my cinema anywhere I feel is right because I am the creator of it."

Lijo feels it is necessary to forge ahead and not be bound by budgetary constraints or circumstances. Drawing attention to the fact that people are dealing with a pandemic, a war, unemployment, identity crisis, poverty, and religious unrest, Lijo added, "People are walking 1000 miles just to reach home. Artists are dying out of depression. So, these are times to create great art just to inspire people to feel alive. Just to give them hope in some form to stay alive."

He concluded his note with the following statement: "Don’t ask us to stop working. Don’t ask us to stop creating. Don’t question our integrity. Don’t question our self-respect. You will terribly lose because we are artists."